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Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Over the past several days, Israel has endured more than 100 mortar and kassams fired at it. They've been fired by Palestinian terrorists from inside Gaza at civilians in Ashdod and elsewhere within range of the mortars and rockets.

It was only Israel's response - a series of airstrikes and counter battery fire, which killed and injured Palestinians that the international media caught wind of what was going on (see CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, etc.). After all, where was CNN's reporting of the Palestinian terror attacks? They were absent - subordinate to the Israeli response.

It's the same story that Israel has endured for years on end - Israel's enemies carry out attacks with impunity and without media scrutiny, but Israel's response is viewed with strict scrutiny.

Up to 15 Palestinian fighters have died in the airstrikes. At least 10 of the dead belonged to the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, the group said in a statement. Mourners at a funeral procession on Saturday fired into the air as they made their way from a hospital in central Gaza City to Shejaeya, a neighborhood where many of the dead fighters had lived.

They chanted, “No free hudna from now on” and “We will not accept the degrading hudna,” referring to the fragile truce with Israel that has been largely observed by Hamas, the larger Islamic group that controls Gaza. Hamas often presses smaller militant groups to refrain from firing rockets at Israel.

A spokesman for Islamic Jihad’s armed wing who is known as Abu Ahmad said, “We will not accept a truce in exchange for our deaths.”

The Israeli military says that it is not seeking an escalation of violence in the region, but that it will act forcefully to protect Israeli citizens.

The sudden flare-up of hostilities began Friday when Israeli air-to-ground missiles killed the leader of one of the militant groups, the Popular Resistance Committees, and his assistant in Gaza. Israel said that the strike on the men’s car had been timed to thwart a terrorist attack that the group was planning against Israelis from across the border with Egypt.

Militants in Gaza retaliated by firing barrages of rockets into southern Israel, and the Israeli Air Force struck back at numerous rocket-firing squads and facilities used by the militant groups. The exchanges continued, albeit with less intensity, through Saturday.

Witnesses said that pilotless drones over Gaza were responsible for most of the strikes against militants and that the strikes occurred as the fighters were launching rockets, or just after they had fired them.

The fact is that nearly all those killed by Israel in the reprisals are members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which was in the process of carrying out a terror attack when Israel preemptively killed a terror leader and his minion. Islamic Jihad's response was the firing of more than 100 rockets at Israel.

The lack of collateral casualties speaks of the high level of precision in targeting the terrorists and separates Israel from its enemies - who fire indiscriminately on and from civilians so as to maximize civilian casualties.

But for the Palestinian terror group seeking to attack Israel in the first place, Israel would not have responded as it did. Israel's further attacks against those seeking to attack Israel must be seen in this light.

Israel doesn't want this fight, but Israel's enemies remain intractable and refuse to accept Israel's existence and will carry out attacks every time they consider conditions favorable.